How are you?I’m good, thank you! The sun is shining, it’s warm, and I’ve just submitted a big piece of work so I’m taking some time out to enjoy Edenhorde today.What’s your guilty pleasure (food-wise)? And when was the last time you had it?I’m terrible for eating really unhealthily when I’m working hard, so my guiltiest pleasure is anything deep fried or takeaway, and I definitely indulged last week. This week it’s porridge and soup or bust. (Edit: Maybe my guilty pleasure is actually deep-fried pickles, because I’ve been thinking about them for the rest of the AMA)What’s the best film you watched in the last year?I tend to have a lot of movies on in the day when I’m working, and most of them are absolutely rubbish, so I’ve got a long list of actually decent films that I really should watch and haven’t got round to. I recently rewatched 2 I enjoyed more than the first time: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, for Gary Oldman doing Alec Guinness perfectly, and The Grand Budapest Hotel.Tell us a unique fact or something interesting that you learned recently.Oh man, I’m an absolute pointless fact hoarder and now I’m on the spot I can’t think of any. OK how about this – the current president of Nintendo in the USA is called Doug Bowser. Also, Nintendo was founded in 1889.What sources do you go to for inspiration? Is there a particular go-to or does it depend?I feel like I answer this in a bit of detail below, but for writing inspiration generally I’m totally all over the place with inspiration, I feel like the worst thing you can do is stare at a blinking cursor and get annoyed with yourself. Far better to go for a walk, play a game or listen to some music than try to get blood out of a stone.Is this your first time working in the NFT space? If yes, how has the experience been and is this a field you’d like to develop further in?Yes, this was completely new to me. I’m aware I still know very little but I feel like I’ve also taken a huge amount on board, and it’s fascinating when it’s something constantly on the news but quite poorly understood by the people reporting on it (or so it seems). I’m not wedded to NFTs exclusively but I’ve massively enjoyed this kind of writing, and I’m really hoping that after the end of the Edenhorde story arc someone will hire me to do some more of this kind of writing, because I’m finding it really rewarding and even addictive!Do you listen to music/podcasts/radio while you work? What are you listening to at the moment?I do, I have to have background noise to concentrate, though I can’t listen to podcasts since I end up basically typing out what they’re saying haha. Music-wise at the moment I’m really enjoying some playlists I’ve made that span doowop, Northern Soul, Amapiano and some cheesy video game instrumentals for good measure.Is Celia Blythe your real name or a pen name?It’s definitely a pen name. I want to keep my day job and this separate, but I’m in it for the long haul now I think, so maybe it’ll become my ‘real’ name too haha.There are likely people reading this who’re thinking of launching an NFT collection that involves lore, storytelling or worldbuilding. What advice or tips can you give to them (if any)?I’d say just go for it! Who knows what you’ll unlock in terms of creativity. I think my one piece of advice would be to draw inspiration from all angles and don’t be afraid to go against what’s popular or trendy – so much stuff out there feels derivative when I’m sure lots of people have bold, big ideas that will bring new ideas and stories to the space.Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?Oh man, this is impossible to answer. I’m going to invoke historian’s privilege and choose my favorite historian: Marc Bloch. His work was so important in the twentieth century and still is, but he was also a hero: he was mobilised at 52 years old to fight in the Second World War, was one of only ten Jewish academics permitted to work in Vichy France where he faced daily harrassment, joined the French Resistance, was captured by the horrific Nazi leader Klaus Barbie in Lyon, imprisoned and tortured, and eventually executed. During his time in captivity he wrote some of his best work and taught his fellow inmates history. To have that kind of driving force, that even in the most horrifying situation you could still bring a sliver of light to those around you, is incredibly inspiringWho’s going to win the 2022 UEFA Champions League?Based on their performance last night, I’d say Real Madrid, just because they’re so ludicrously OTT about it.Would you put money on that?If I were sensible I’d put money on Manchester City. But you’ve got to root for the underdog.

Questions from the Community

It would be interesting to hear the background of how you and Edenhorde came together. And how does the collaboration works? Edenhorde came with a general idea and you then craft the story; intertwine the scenes?

How did you link up with Merit Circle to work on this project? Was Edenhorde completely your idea, or were you brought on board to build out the world? What was it like to work with the team? Were there any limitations when you were building the world?So I was actually asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in working on the project, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured, I'd love to have a go at this, so that's what I did! I wrote a pitch. And yeah, it just went from there.

At first, Edenhorde had the four tribes and some of their cultural and physical qualities, for instance one tribe was going to be mechanical, another living near water with a more anarchic feel, that kind of thing. But otherwise, I would say I've had a lot of creative license. And I think originally, the world was going to be quite kind of dystopian, but I felt that I wanted to create something maybe a bit more light hearted, something more colorful that reflected Andy’s style, and a little more out there perhaps.

I've never worked with an illustrator before. So it's kind of been a case of using what Andy is doing, and then building a kind of back story for it, in some ways. But I try to come up with ideas that give Andy the greatest creative freedom possible. So I guess I try and ensure we’re on the same page, but he's the pro, so I also try and give him as much creative license as possible while still guiding the visual aspects where it’s needed.What's your favorite place or environment to get inspiration? What are the first 3 books you would recommend to yourself if you could go back in time?I’ve decided it’s absolutely impossible to choose! As you might expect, I'm kind of a nerd – I love Lord of the Rings and the world built by Tolkien, and I really like the Discworld series for something that doesn’t take itself too seriously but is really rich. I've never been like particularly into hardcore scifi or high fantasy, but I’m a huge fan of Asimov’s Foundation series too, along with magic realism like Haruki Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Mikhail Bulgavkov’s The Master and Margarita, the list goes on!Which sources do you take as your inspiration for the story of Edenhorde? What have been your influences in the past in regard to movies and books?I am a historian by trade, that's my day job. This is my first venture into anything fictional, but I do lots of writing for work from blogs to full books and editing other people’s stuff, as well as running workshops and events communicating my period of history to adults (and kids), which is fun but can be really challenging to distil what to our eyes seem like strange customs and peoples and make them relatable.

So lots and lots of the lore and the history and the cultural aspects came from historical documents and literature, from all over the world, collaged together to hopefully bring something unique to the table.

In terms of visual inspiration, things like Blade Runner, things like the Studio Ghibli movies, for sure, and the Moomin books. I love doing embroidery and I often feel quite inspired by that when thinking about the whimsical aspects of Edenhorde. I'm also a huge fan of JRPGs. So I love the Final Fantasy series and have played most of them a bunch of times. I really like a game called Lost Odyssey which is quite hard to get hold of, but plays around with narrative form and concepts of immortality in a way I found fascinating.Which tribe did you enjoy writing about most and which tribe do you think will surprise us the most throughout the lore 👀Okay, I’ll take these together. If I could live as a member of one of the tribes of Eden Horde? This to me is a bit like asking if I could live in a period of history…. My answer hugely depends on whether I’d be rich or poor hahaha. I'd probably rather be a poor Babbumatta than a than a poor Larrik, for instance, but in terms of the tribe that I feel like I would fit in with most, it’s probably the Gadira, I feel like I’m naturally quite lazy and would rather look for hustle than hard graft.

In terms of which is my favorite, this is such a boring answer but I don't have one! I built them all up simultaneously. So they all feel like they have parts of me and parts of what I'm interested in them, and all of them have both darkness and light, good and bad, so there’s no clear winner for me there.In the world of Edenhorde - is there a clear leading tribe or do all live co-dependent of each other? Do all of the tribes need to work together to combat a common enemy or force of nature?Without kind of having any spoilers like the tribes are to an extent codependent on each other. Obviously Gadira has its own gravitational pull, but I also wanted to create a world which has degrees of independence and interaction for both characters and communities.How expansive of a lore are we talking about? Is it gigantic scale high fantasy world building or small scale DnD adventure with frens at the kitchen table? Is there a mythos/cosmology that starts millenia ago behind the Edenhorde stories that await us?So I wanted to build something that basically was scalable. So because Edenhorde is still new as a project, I wanted to make something that felt complete, in the sense that you have the eight chapters, and the story arc that will be revealed within doesn't leave you feeling unsatisfied, but it does have lots of potential to be enriched, for the history to be made bigger, that kind of thing. So I've worked on it in terms of both the macro and the micro: individual characters in the story, but also the world building aspect. And I’ve done both at the same time – I started with the world building then went to the personal narrative and the story arc, and bounced between the two.If you had to sum up your writing process in a few sentences, what would you say?So I tend to spend an awful lot of time, in my head, I guess, kind of sketching various things out when I’m meant to be doing other work (and this applies to my day job and Edenhorde, whichever one I’m not meant to be working on, I am). And then it's a case of just sitting down and getting everything out onto the page. Big, big pot of coffee, and music, and then in the evenings that seamlessly transitions to a beer and the football and me still at my desk. And then comes the hard part: editing!